Awkwardly Ever After Read online

  Still, showing up to school the next day wasn’t easy. Not when I had to ignore all the kids twisting in their seats to get a good look at me on the bus. Everyone was whispering, and I couldn’t tell if they were speculating about my relationship with Spencer or if I was being paranoid. So I tried to distance myself from everything. To act like a sociologist studying an interesting ritual from some poorly documented tribe. Everyone on the bus deferred to someone higher up in the pecking order, until the person closest to Notable status—some jock whose family couldn’t afford a set of wheels for him—smirked and then pointedly looked away from me.

  I couldn’t tell if that was because I was too far beneath his notice even to acknowledge with a withering comment or because he feared retribution in the form of Spencer King if he opened his mouth and the wrong words came out.

  Either way, the attention twisted my stomach and made me want to hide deeper in the loose gray sweatshirt I was wearing. I closed my eyes, which only heightened the prickly sensation of being examined from all angles. It made me hyperaware of my body, specifically my breathing. Every time I thought about Spencer, it hitched. And every time I considered pretending that yesterday had never happened . . . it sputtered. As if it couldn’t believe I was even considering that as a real possibility.

  Maybe because it wasn’t.

  Not now that I thought I might have an answer to the most important question I’d been asked the day before.

  So, I gritted my teeth and fumbled in the pocket of my sweatshirt for my wallet, as I disembarked from the bus and headed straight for my two least favorite people in the world: Fake and Bake—Ashley and Steffani—I mentally corrected myself. I was going to do this right because I refused to have any regrets.

  Which meant treating others the way I wanted to be treated.

  Even if they so didn’t deserve it.

  I forced myself to straighten my shoulders instead of slouching as I stood in line to buy tickets for prom. Ashley was in charge of the cash box, or at least she was in charge of sitting behind it and looking perfectly . . . perky. And judgmental. Both girls belonged in a teen magazine with price tags coming off every item of their clothes.

  I took a deep breath. I could do this. All I had to do was stand in this stupid line and fork over twenty bucks. Then I could put phase two of my plan into action after school when I might be able to get some privacy. Five people ahead of me. Two of them were nuzzling each other and looking all doe-eyed and in love, which meant that I only had to wait for four purchases to be made. Assuming that it took no more than three minutes to complete each transaction, I should be free and clear—with time to spare—within the next twenty minutes.

  I could survive being an object of curiosity for the Notables that long.

  “Hey, you’re in the wrong line, Fatty. You have to get your cookies from the cafeteria.”

  I flinched, even though I knew Alex Thompson would probably award himself five points for that small display of weakness.

  “Stop, Alex,” Ashley called out from the table.

  Everyone turned to stare at her in amazement. She was the last person I had ever expected to defend me, and it looked like no one else at Smith High School saw that one coming either.

  And then she smiled nastily.

  “That’s no way to treat a pregnant girl.”

  “She’s not pregnant,” Steffani giggled. “She would have to have sex for that to happen. And who would want to sleep with her?”

  “Oh yeah? Then how come I can see her baby bump from here?”

  Alex guffawed right into my ear and I totally froze up, just like I had the first time in the cafeteria. My palms went all sweaty and I began calculating how many points I would lose if I cut and run. If I sprinted toward the English building and didn’t stop running until I was safely ensconced in the library.

  But that’d be quitting and I wouldn’t get what I wanted if I didn’t fight for it.

  So I cut the line.

  I stalked right over to the desk with the huge sign that read

  PERFECT PROM in sparkly letters with little hearts bouncing around the words, and I slapped down the twenty.

  “Two tickets please,” I gritted out. And then I shoved up my glasses because even though I wanted to channel a total badass version of myself, I still needed to be able to see without squinting.

  “I’m sorry,” Steffani said coolly, “but prom is for upperclassmen only. Not for geeky freshmen.”

  “I’m taking a junior. Now give me the tickets.”

  “Well, that puts a new spin on ‘putting out,’ ” Ashley said snidely. “Isn’t the guy supposed to pay? I guess this is part of the bribe for taking you, huh? You know, I almost feel sorry for you.”

  My breath whooshed out of me as if I had been walloped right in the stomach.

  She feels sorry for me.

  For some reason, that’s what did it. I leaned forward.

  “You know what, Ashley? There are days when I feel sorry for myself. Days when I wake up and I look in the mirror and I feel like crap. And I hear people like you in my head telling me that I’m worthless. And there are days when I believe it.” I paused for that to sink in before I continued. “Here’s the thing: I may wage a daily war against my mirror, but I will never look back on high school and know that I intentionally made other people feel like crap. That’s something you will have to live with. So . . . feel free to choke on your pity. I’m going to be just fine.”

  I inched the twenty across the table closer to her, noting the slack jaw with a fair amount of pride. Maybe she was shocked to hear the geek stand up for herself. Maybe she wasn’t as heartless as she let on and my words would haunt her for years to come.

  I didn’t care anymore.

  They didn’t matter. Not to me. I hadn’t been exaggerating when I had told Spencer that there were people who cared about me. Really freaking awesome people like Sam who liked me already. I had friends who didn’t need me to change in order to earn their affection.

  “Freak.” Alex pitched his voice so that everyone within a fifteen-foot radius would hear.

  I nodded as I scooped up the tickets Steffani had hesitantly laid out on the table. “Of course I’m a freak. Now ask me if I care?”

  “I care.”

  I whirled around. I’d read that in combat situations, when soldiers were in a state of battle readiness, suddenly everything would intensify: colors, tastes, textures, even seemingly unimportant details. I had thought the adrenaline rush from facing down the Notables was already pumping as much adrenaline into my system as I had on reserve, but apparently the sight of Spencer stalking toward me activated some untapped reservoir.

  Maybe some of that reaction was chemical. Spencer was unbelievably hot with a scowl twisting his face and his eyes flashing murder. So much for the good-time frat boy in training I had accused him of being. This guy wasn’t about to crack open a six-pack or joke everyone into a good mood.

  He looked like he was five seconds away from using Alex as practice for body-checking a hockey opponent to the ground.

  And while I had no trouble imagining how I wanted a fierce battle for my honor to proceed (Hint: It somehow included Spencer losing his shirt and a much longer display of those fascinating tendons that I had spotted earlier), that wasn’t the best move for any of us.

  Plus, I was getting sick of other people trying to fight my battles for me.

  “Hey!” I said, trying to cut Spencer off at the pass. “I have something for you.”

  He nodded brusquely but didn’t take his eyes off Alex. “I thought Logan and I made it clear that you should keep your opinions to yourself. I’m happy to give you a reminder, though.”

  I darted between the boys, even though it forced me to turn my back on Alex. I was counting on him having the good sense not to provoke an already pissed-off Spencer, but it was never a good idea to depend on the intellect of an asshole. “That’s not necessary.”

  “Move, Belle.”

>   I felt a wave of relief at the ease with which my nickname slipped off his tongue. So maybe he didn’t hate me for panicking after our kiss last night. Then again, it was entirely possible he was just a staunch defender for the geek population at our school. There was only one way to find out.

  “Make me, Spencer.”

  That’s when I stood up on tiptoe and flung my arms around his neck. I hoped it looked like a romantic gesture that deserved swelling music and the rest of the world to go slightly out of focus, instead of a desperate attempt to stop him from picking a fight with a football player. Spencer looked momentarily poleaxed, possibly because he never expected to feel my body pressed against his again. Then his lips tilted upward into a wry smile. “Now who is cranking the sex up to eleven?”

  He was right.

  I instantly released my hold and found myself wobbling back on my feet. Everyone was staring at us as if they expected Spencer to make some devastatingly snarky comment and it was just . . . too much. So I took a different page out of his playbook, grasped his wrist, and began pulling him away from the line for prom tickets. Past Ashley and Steffani, whom I could feel glaring fiercely at the back of my head, and away from the lurkers craning their necks to catch a glimpse of my train wreck of a fake relationship.

  “Am I being taken aside for punishment?” Spencer’s tone was light and easy, and if I hadn’t spent all day yesterday getting to know the guy beneath the jokes, I would’ve believed that he felt nothing more than idle curiosity. “It’s because I read the spoilers to Battlestar Galactica, right?”

  I pulled up short. “You did what?!”

  “I read the—”

  I raised a hand. “Stop talking. I’m going to pretend you didn’t just tell me that you single-handedly ruined one of the greatest television shows for yourself, because otherwise we might not be able to be friends.”

  Spencer raised that damn eyebrow, and even though it was probably an ingrained natural reaction—completely unrelated to my snarky comment the day before—I felt my cheeks start to redden. “So we’re back to being friends, huh?”

  I crossed my arms. “Yeah, I thought about it last night. I want to be your friend.” I said it with the same firmness I had used with Alex Thompson only minutes earlier, but it was far less effective now. Maybe because my voice had a new husky quality to it that I’d never heard before coming from me.

  Spencer stiffened. “Fine, then—”

  “I want to be your friend,” I repeated. “And I want to, um . . . get to know you better.”

  I watched his body loosen slightly, but his eyes didn’t lose their hard, focused edge. “What does that mean, Belle? Spell it out for me. If you want me to tell you more of my deep dark secrets, then you’re out of luck. I’m not into the whole tall, dark, and brooding thing.”

  I laughed uncomfortably and I briefly considered bailing. I could probably run to the nearest girls’ bathroom without raising too many jeers from the crowd of students I hadn’t been able to escape entirely. I could call Melanie for advice from the safety of a stall. She’d drop everything, knock on the door of the handicap toilet, perch on the railing, tuck a strand of her long black hair back behind an ear, and patiently hear me out.

  But I was determined to test out my new problem-solving method, and that meant earning points instead of losing them. And giving Spencer an honest answer to the question he had asked me last night. That would earn a whopping one hundred points for me.

  “I want to kiss you again.” I avoided looking at his face in case that would make me lose my nerve. Instead, I focused my attention on the scraped sides of my battered sneakers. “And I still want to watch Battlestar Galactica with you—except this time, I plan on eating the pizza. But I’m not the kind of girl—” I stopped myself and tried again. “I’m still getting to know you, so . . . I want us to be friends who also make out.” My eyes darted up to his face and my heart leaped when I saw the grin that was beginning to spread across it.

  “You want to be my girlfriend.”

  “That’s not—” I choked. “I mean . . . can we hold off on the labels?”

  He placed a firm finger under my chin and lifted it so that I would have no choice but to get the full force of his laser green eyes. “You want to get to know me better.”

  “Yes,” I agreed.

  “You don’t want me to be kissing anyone else, do you?”

  My stomach plummeted painfully at the thought. I shook my head.

  Spencer gestured to the tickets that were now seconds away from being mangled in one clenched hand. “Good. I’m guessing one of those is for me?”

  “Um . . .” So much for my plan to do the actual asking. “Yeah.”

  “Okay. You totally want back on my couch,” he crowed. “You’re just dying for me to—”

  I shoved him, but since he didn’t budge or stop laughing, I decided I needed to try a nonverbal approach. One that had worked out pretty well the last time we had been alone. So I cut him off with a long, slow kiss.

  The sensation of his lips against mine swamped me.

  I didn’t care who stood gawking and whispering at our public display of affection. Sure, Principal Taylor could effectively kill the mood by clearing his throat and telling us to get to class, but it no longer mattered to me what the general population of Smith High School thought about the bad boy and the geek getting caught up in a heated lip-lock.

  Because it was just Spencer and me.

  He gently nipped my lower lip and then grinned irresistibly as I let out a quiet gasp. “I’d love to go to prom with you. Although if you want . . .” His voice lowered as he kissed his way over to my left ear. “We could always leave early. You could teach me all about the Cylons.”

  “I’ve got a better idea.”

  Spencer smiled against my jaw. “So do I. Mackenzie’s yoga moves looked like a whole lot of fun—”

  I smacked his arm but couldn’t contain the laughter spilling out of me. He was ridiculous, and way too sure of himself, and . . . I could hardly wait to be alone with him again.

  “I was thinking you could teach me how to play pool.”

  “How about strip pool?” he suggested teasingly, before he sobered as he stared directly into my eyes. “What changed your mind, Belle? About us. You weren’t exactly wanting pool lessons yesterday.”

  I had spent half the night wondering if I had lost my fracking mind. I had even double-checked the details of Stockholm syndrome to make sure I wasn’t suffering from the actual condition. But the answer—the most honest answer I could provide—was that I liked him.

  I even liked the way he joked about playing strip pool.

  “It was time for me to fight for what I wanted,” I said slowly. “And, um . . . that includes you, I guess. My turn, similar question. What is it that you see in me? We both know you don’t need my geeky reputation anymore, so why—”

  “Because you’d do anything for your friends, even if that means watching Disney movies with strangers.” Spencer’s voice lowered, became more intimate. “Because you’re smart and funny, and you can hold your own in a frozen yogurt fight.” Something in his eyes heated. “You also kiss like a slightly unhinged librarian. And speaking from experience, I happen to love the way you—”

  Whatever he was about to say was interrupted by the warning bell, which left me wondering if he’d been about to insinuate something perfectly innocent. He might love the way I . . . smiled. Maybe he loved my laugh. Or maybe the two of us were equally eager to feel my body pressed against his, and he was imagining what it would be like with fewer barriers in the way.

  He grinned, as if he could tell exactly where my mind had wandered. “I’ll let you mull over all the possibilities, Belle.”

  Then he pressed a quick, hard kiss to my lips before he sauntered off in the direction of his first class. Leaving me bemused and flustered and . . . smiling like a fool as my body buzzed with anticipation. He liked me too. All of me, not just the parts that conveniently h
elped him thwart all Notable plans for prom.

  The rest of the school could dismiss me as a geek, but in Spencer’s eyes I was more than a Notable.

  I was the Belle of the fracking ball.

  And that was totally cool with me.

  After

  Chapter 1

  The Mardi Gras theme that so many people bitterly complained about a week ago has now been replaced with “Hollywood Glamor” by the prom committee.

  No word yet as to whether the change is meant to make some very famous performers feel right at home....

  —from “Smith High School Goes Hollywood,”

  by Lisa Anne Montgomery

  Published by The Smithsonian

  I used to envy the people who dated rock stars.

  Not just rock stars; all of the Hollywood elite, the award-winning actors and screenwriters who showed up to red carpet events clad in designer everything. I thought life must be fun for their plus one, to know that they were beyond special to be desired by someone who could have their pick from a pool of over 80,000 screaming fans.

  But I had never considered the logistics of dating a celebrity until I was stuck trying to steal a moment of privacy with my boyfriend while his new bodyguard, Darryl, loomed conspicuously beside us. It wasn’t supposed to work that way. Evading the media attention was supposed to be sexy and glamorous and really freaking hot.

  There was nothing sexy about looking over my shoulder for a homophobe with a gun every time I wanted to reach for my boyfriend’s hand. Even if that was supposed to be Darryl’s concern.

  Yeah, tell that to my parents, who were still wading through last week’s death threats.

  “You okay, Corey?” Tim asked me, tossing an arm around my shoulder in a possessive move that never failed to make something inside me flip over with excitement. “You seem like you’re a million miles away.”